The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
The introduction of the DVR to the consumer world has revolutionized the way users watch and record television programs. DVRs record television programs on a hard drive that is capable of storing a large number of television programs. A DVR's user can instruct the DVR to schedule, for recording, specified content that may be broadcast or otherwise transmitted to the DVR at some future time. For example, the user may instruct the DVR to record unspecified content that will be broadcasted on a specified channel beginning at a specified date and time and ending at another specified time. For another example, the user may instruct the DVR to record a specified showing (on a specified channel, and beginning at a specified date and time) of a specified movie, specified event, or specified episode of a multi-episode television series.
A service provider of a DVR service may store data related to a particular user in a centralized server in order to provide particular services. For example, a user might instruct, through a remote interface (e.g., through a website), the user's DVR to record all episodes of a multi-episode television series on a specified channel. Under this circumstance, data regarding the instructions for the recordings are processed by a central server and then stored in the central server for the particular user. The central server sends the data regarding the instructions for recordings to the user's DVR in order for the DVR to record the requested content.
The use of a central server to provide services has become far more widespread, especially with use of the Internet. For example, in addition to DVR services, services with other personal or mobile devices, such as the cell phone, are becoming more common. With the addition of these centralized services to every day life, backing up data to provide these services has become more critical.